Germany Wants to Arrest Reporter
Alina Lipp and the Foreign Media Cheers
IMedia
(September 1, 2022) — According to a report from Russia Today, on the 16th, a German independent journalist, Alina Lipp, was investigated by the German side for telling the truth.
The German prosecutor’s office brought criminal charges against the journalist but did not allow her to participate in the hearing, saying it would “jeopardize the purpose of the investigation.” The Germans also seized funds from her account and Lipp could face a hefty fine or three years in prison.
Alina Lipp is a German independent journalist whose mother is German and whose father is Russian. Based on her family background, she has been committed to promoting friendship between Germany and Russia. In 2021, she moved to the Donetsk region of Ukraine and since the Russian-Ukrainian war, she has published events in the region on her channel “Russian News” as an independent journalist.
First-hand information allowed her channel to explode in subscribers, from a few thousand to around 155,000 in just a few months. On her channel, she reported on the tragic state of life in Ukraine since the war, as well as the military actions of Ukrainian militants against civilians. In the Donetsk region, Ukrainians live without water and electricity, and are terrified of the Ukrainian army, she said.
However, these reports brought her a lot of “trouble”. On the 15th, Lip said on his channel that the German side had filed a criminal case against her and that she was very likely to be sentenced. At the same time, she also said that the German prosecutor’s office refused her to participate in his hearing on the grounds that it would “jeopardize the purpose of the investigation”.
Alina Lipp Questions
German Media’s ‘Freedom of Speech’
Since the Russian-Ukrainian war, the German side has been careful in expressing its position, avoiding all “pro-Russian” remarks. According to Russia Today, an investigation into Lipp has been launched in Germany since she posted a video on the channel in February.
The German side said that Lipp had made remarks on her channel that “denazification has begun”, expressing support for the war of aggression. This condoned crime is regulated by the Criminal Code, and her actions have been constitute a crime under international criminal law.
Lipp questioned the nature of German domestic reporting after the 2014 Ukraine crisis. She said the German media was concealing important facts about the Ukraine crisis and even spreading rumours. However, top German politicians and professors turned a blind eye. She said that the German authorities only allow journalists to publish one-sided or specific remarks, there is no freedom of speech at all, and anyone who violates the “rules” will be punished by law. In the eyes of the Germans, supporting Russia’s special military operations has become a “criminal act”.
The Russian media said that Lipp’s remarks may inflame the emotions of the German people, trigger social dissent, make Germany doubt the authenticity of news media reports, and may even shake the credibility of the entire democratic system.
German Media Has Mixed Opinion on Lipp
In response to Lipp’s remarks, many German media have criticized her and “demonized” her, calling her “Putin’s mouthpiece”. German media also cheered after news that Lip was facing jail time, saying she was finally being punished for promoting the war.
Michael Hearn, editor-in-chief of Germany’s Berlin Express, wrote an op-ed to accuse Lipp. According to Hearn, everything Lipp said was a lie, including that Donbas residents had escaped Ukrainian nationalism…. But in his article, he never talked about the Russian-phobic atmosphere in Germany.
Authorities Claim Lipp’s Donbass
Reporting Constitutes a Criminal Act
NEW ZEALAND (September 1, 2022) — Western censorship of information about the Russian Special Operation in Ukraine has reached a new low with confirmation the German government is proceeding with a prosecution of independent journalist Alina Lipp.
Lipp has been living for half a year in Donetsk, telling Germans what is going on in the Donbass region and in Ukraine. Her reports contradict the information forced-fed to the public by legacy mainstream media.
She says:
‘The German authorities have now started to persecute me. First, they deleted my material on the Internet. Then they blocked my bank account, then blocked the bank account of my father, and yesterday I got this letter from German authorities that they opened now a criminal case against me.
‘So, these are the documents, and for Germans the support of the Special Operation in Ukraine is a criminal act, for which you can get three years in prison.
‘In the letter they write on the 24th of February I published a report on Telegram saying the de-Nazification began, and that the people of the Donbass region support Russia in the decision to start this Special Operation, and I was also saying the Ukrainians were killing the people here in Donbass already for several years.
Also, they are writing that on the 12th of March I published a video in which I said that Ukraine was doing a genocide in Donbass.
‘What is interesting in the letter is that they are not going to invite me to a hearing, because ‘this would disturb the investigation.’ So, they are persecuting me, but don’t want to hear me out.
‘What is happening to me now can happen to all independent journalists and bloggers, and that’s why I would like to propose to you dear colleagues, that we are going to start to work together more, to support each other against the censorship in the west.’
Ukraine’s Ultra-right Puts Reporter on ‘Kill List’
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